In a content-rich world, consumers (i.e., end users) are overwhelmed by the viewing choices available to them on TV, Video on Demand, the Internet, mobile, etc. This rapidly becomes an irritating experience as, each time, they click through channel-after-channel on the TV listings or wander through the VOD library. The result—consumers stick to watching what they already know, and after a while begin to question whether they are getting value for their subscription money. In this situation customer retention becomes a problem. The fact is consumers cannot select what they don't know—so ‘Search’ alone is the wrong approach to a constantly changing Electronic Program Guide or large VOD library.
It is valuable to expose consumers to a wider range of content than they would normally discover for themselves. Where the consumer explicitly declares a wide range of tastes this is relatively simple to achieve, but in many cases the consumer may be cautious or lazy and will declare a narrow range of tastes or even none. For instance, they may often start by declaring only gender, age and perhaps one taste area.